Diesel oil, because of its operational safety benefits, high heat of combustion, and promise of improved gains, has found wide acceptance in land-based industrial power generating and heating systems, the commercial trucking industry, private passenger road vehicles, as well as commercial marine vessels and private pleasure boats. As a result, a reliable and broad distribution system had evolved to satisfy these markets, assuring its availability.
Considering the case of the smaller commercial vessels, (e.g. fishing boats), and private pleasure boats, the intermittant operational duty cycle of their propulsion engines cannot provide a constant source of heating by using the propulsion engine waste heat; and consequently, the industry supporting this application has evolved around auxiliary heating systems utilizing bottled gas, kerosene, and diesel oil. Gasoline fueled heaters have not found a significant market even in those cases where a gasoline powered propulsion system and its attendant storage system and components were already available.
In terms of the energy storage capacity of a separate fuel system for heating fuel, the bottled gas systems are deficient compared to liquid fuels such as kerosene and diesel oil. In the final case, for diesel powered propulsion systems, the diesel oil heating systems require no additional storage nor separate dock servicing for the heating system.
In the past, liquid fueled combustion heater systems have depended upon "pot" and "wick" type burners as well as the broadly used applications of liquid fuel atomizers discharging into relatively large "plenum type" combustion chambers. None of the above specifically produce fully vaporized, homogeneous, fuel/air ratios prior to combustion to maximize the combustion efficiency. In addition, when considering the liquid fuel atomized plenum chamber arrangement, attempts to obtain high heat release per cubic foot of combustion chamber has resulted in an uneven rate of heat release coupled with the accoustics of the plenum to produce undesirable noise and vibration.
The prior art has made some effect to overcome the problems noted; namely, low combustion efficiency, noise and vibration, and increased heat release per unit of combustion chamber volume. U.S. Pat. No. 2,486,481 describes a liquid fuel burner which is a stove comprising a pair of tubular members that are assembled in such a way as to preheat the air moving into the combustion chamber, either by natural or forced draft. U.S. Pat. No. 2,810,260 shows a prevaporizer type of combustion chamber having a longitudinally moveable prevaporizer tube. U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,812 is an industrial burner having a recuperative air preheating device including an air duct cylinder mounted about the burner and forming an annular gap between the air duct cylinder and a jacket tube. U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,437 is a combustion chamber with an evaporator projecting into the combustion zone of the flame tube. These prior art patented devices provide complex arrangements for preheating and vaporizing incoming fuel. In addition, these devices fail to offer the necessary controls for the safe and efficient operation of the devices. None of these prior art devices has incorporated microprocessor controls for offering maximum efficiency in the usage of the burner systems.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vaporizing burner which effectively and efficiently burns liquid fuel.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an oil vaporizing burner of simplified construction.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a burner which is capable of using vaporized oil as fuel for attaining high combustion efficiency.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a high efficiency oil burner which is quiet in operation.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a liquid fuel burner including a microprocessor temperature and burner control for automatically monitoring and controlling the operation of the burner.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the attached specification and appended claims.